News from the Field

David Free

Library of Virginia Joins ASERL

The Library of Virginia has been approved as the newest member of the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL), a significant opportunity that expands Virginia’s role in one of the nation’s most active regional research library consortia. The announcement follows a vote of ASERL’s membership at its fall 2025 meeting, where the organization welcomed the Library of Virginia into its growing community of research institutions. Founded in 1956, ASERL brings together leading research libraries across the Southeast to advance shared goals in resource sharing, professional development, and collaborative innovation. With the addition of the Library of Virginia, the consortium now includes more than three dozen institutions committed to expanding access to knowledge and improving services for researchers, students, and the public.

The Library of Virginia serves as the Commonwealth’s library and archives, preserving more than 134 million collection items and supporting libraries, researchers, educators, and the public statewide. Membership in ASERL will further extend the library’s ability to collaborate regionally and contribute to national conversations about library innovation.

GPO Appoints New Depository Library Council Members

US Government Publishing Office (GPO) Director Hugh Nathanial Halpern, on the agency’s 165th birthday, has appointed six new members to the Depository Library Council (DLC). The DLC has advised the GPO Director on policy matters relating to the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) and access to US Government information for more than 50 years. In addition to experience working in various types of libraries, the new DLC members have experience with and knowledge of current developments in library science and US Government information.

The new members are Brent Abercrombie, regional coordinator and reference librarian at the Indiana State Library; Andie Craley, technical services and government information librarian and depository coordinator at the Harford Community College Library; Ashley S. Dees, associate head of research and instruction services and associate professor at the University of Mississippi Libraries; Dominique Hallett, government information and STEM librarian at the Arkansas State University Dean B. Ellis Library; Antoine McGrath, FDLP coordinator and manager of open library at the Internet Archive Library; and Joe Mocnik, professor and senior advisor at the Kansas State University Hale Library. These new members will help position the DLC and the FDLP to advance GPO’s vision of an America informed.

New from ACRL – Inclusive Leadership in Academic Libraries

ACRL announces the publication of Inclusive Leadership in Academic Libraries, edited by Annie Bélanger, Jennifer A. DeVito, and John J. Meier. This collection explores what inclusive leadership is, the theories underlying it, and ways to incorporate it into your daily work.

Libraries are forever in a state of change and evolution. We are affected by social movements, cultural norms, the political climate, and economic forces. Developing skills in inclusive leadership is one step toward fostering workspaces that are diverse, equitable, and able to effectively manage through change while holding true to our values as library colleagues.

Inclusive Leadership in Academic Libraries offers twenty-six chapters in three parts designed to help you develop these skills.

• Setting the Stage: Introduces inclusive leadership and theoretical frameworks
• Concepts and Practices: Includes chapters on the themes and theories of inclusive leadership and case studies demonstrating them
• Living into Inclusive Leadership: Puts inclusive leadership into practice and offers examples of how it’s been done in various academic libraries

Inclusive leadership incorporates empathy, acknowledges that every person brings different perspectives and skills to the workplace, and articulates that leaders exist at all levels. Inclusive Leadership in Academic Libraries will help you incorporate effective, equitable practices throughout your library. This book is also available as an open access edition.

Inclusive Leadership in Academic Libraries is available for purchase in print through the ALA Online Store and Amazon.com; via EBSCO, ProQuest, and other ebook vendors; and by telephone order at (866) 746-7252 in the United States or (770) 442-8633 for international customers.

Subscribe to Open Meets Sustainability Threshold

Project MUSE recently announced that it has met its sustainability threshold for another year of Subscribe to Open (S20). As a result, current content from more than one hundred journals across twenty-eight publishers will be available open access on the Project MUSE platform for a second year in 2026. Project MUSE is deeply grateful to its partnering libraries and institutions worldwide, as well as the S2O Community of Practice, for their commitment to ensuring vital humanities and social science scholarship is accessible to everyone. S2O is an equitable open access model for scholarly journals that enables subscription journals to open access to their current content without article processing charges. Learn more about S2O at https://about.muse.jhu.edu/subscribe-to-open/S2O.

Bloomsbury Open Collections Adds Titles

Bloomsbury has announced that Bloomsbury Open Collections has reached 48% of its funding goal globally for 2025–26, ensuring a further twenty-nine titles are added. This builds on the initial thirty-four titles that have been published open access in the first two years of the program. Bloomsbury Open Collections is part of Bloomsbury’s wider open access offering, which sees the publisher release well over one hundred open access books each year. Pioneering an alternative to traditional open access models, which typically rely on an individual or their funder or institution paying a fee (or book processing charge) to cover the costs of publishing, Bloomsbury Open Collections’ equity-led approach spreads the cost across multiple institutions. Bloomsbury was the first commercial publisher to pilot such a model and, following the successful launch of the pilot program in 2023, expanded the range of disciplines offered in 2024. As Bloomsbury enters its fourth year of Bloomsbury Open Collections, the program showcases the potential sustainability and resilience of collective-action open access models. More details are available at https://www.bloomsbury.com/discover/bloomsbury-academic/open-access/bloomsbury-open-collections/.

CACTUS, Taylor & Francis Renew Partnership

Cactus Communications (CACTUS) and Taylor & Francis have announced the renewal of their partnership, which provides tailored language support to journal authors. Language quality plays a critical role in the peer-review process. Poorly written submissions can impact reviewers’ understanding of the research or may unconsciously affect their assessment, creating an obstacle to publication for researchers who are not fluent in English. However, with the support of CACTUS’ solution, Paperpal Preflight, authors submitting to Taylor & Francis journals can avoid desk-rejection due to writing quality and ensure editors and reviewers are able to focus on their research. Since Taylor & Francis adopted Paperpal Preflight in 2024, this feedback has enabled hundreds of authors to improve their manuscripts to the level required for editorial assessment. With this renewed partnership, the tool can continue to play a role in enhancing the publishing experience for researchers and helping their work achieve a global readership. Learn more about Paperpal Preflight at https://paperpal.com/preflight.

ACRL Releases Integrating Academic Libraries When Institutions Merge

ACRL announces the publication of Integrating Academic Libraries When Institutions Merge edited by Scott R. DiMarco, Lisandra R. Carmichael, and Courtney Heatley, offering ways to turn an independent organization steeped in its own procedures and mission into a merged library that is effective, cohesive, and student centered.

University and college mergers are increasingly common, and merging institutions have consequences for and demand new skills from their academic libraries. In three sections, Integrating Academic Libraries When Institutions Merge provides strategies for integrating collections, systems, and teams while maintaining critical library operations from authors who have undergone a merger.

• Preparing to Merge
• The New Integrated Culture
• Managing Change

The key to every merger is almost always the same: People and culture working together to get the job done and, in the process, creating a new culture. Integrating Academic Libraries When Institutions Merge can help you confront the past, adapt to the present, and strategize for a sustainable future.

Integrating Academic Libraries When Institutions Merge is available for purchase in print through the ALA Online Store and Amazon.com; as an ebook through the ALA Online Store; via EBSCO, ProQuest, and other ebook vendors; and by telephone order at (866) 746-7252 in the United States or (770) 442-8633 for international customers.

ARL Annual Report Highlights Community Resilience in 2025

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has released its 2025 Annual Report. Last year tested research libraries in ways both familiar and newly unsettling. Across higher education, government, and civic life, trust in institutions fell to historic lows, resources became even more constrained, and the pace of technological, political, and social change was unrelenting. For the ARL and its members, these pressures were tangible—forcing difficult budget decisions, heightening scrutiny of collections and services, and increasing uncertainty around access to public data and the scientific record. View and download the report at https://www.arl.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/ARL-Annual-Report-2025-accessible.pdf.

Fostering Change for Academic Library Leaders 2026 Cohort Registration Now Open

Registration is open for ACRL’s annual Fostering Change for Academic Library Leaders cohort, a nine-week virtual program that aims to build a community of inclusive leaders and change agents in academic libraries. The 2026 cohort will run from June 1 through July 31, 2026. Fostering Change for Academic Library Leaders gives participants the tools to spark, lead, and sustain change no matter their organizational position. Facilitators Cinthya Ippoliti, university library dean at California State University, San Marcos, and Brianna Marshall, dean of the library at Northern Kentucky University, help you build practical strategies for working with change stakeholders inside and outside the library and cultivate leadership capacity to address the challenges facing academic libraries. Learn more on the cohort website at https://www.ala.org/acrl/fosteringchangecohort.

Tech Bits . . .

Brought to you by the ACRL ULS Technology in University Libraries Committee

Lucidchart is a quick and easy online diagramming tool that allows users to create customized flowcharts and other diagrams. As a browser-based software, no download is necessary. Drag-and-drop features for shapes and symbols, templates, and real-time collaboration capabilities enhance teamwork. Lucidchart can integrate with a variety of other tools such as Slack, Asana, Microsoft, and Google products. Diagrams are automatically saved in a user’s documents folder, and there are a variety of download and print options. Free accounts limit the user to three editable documents at a time, sixty shapes per document, and one hundred templates. Paid plans provide unlimited documents, 1GB of storage, premium shapes, and templates. Support is available on the website via videos and articles.

— Donna B. Smith, Northern Kentucky University

Lucidchart

https://www.lucidchart.com/